A Little Autumn Tale
by Sandileina
Summary: Well, you can’t say that life with Rikkai Dai is ever boring. Just ask Yagyuu’s golf clubs, or Sanada’s email inbox.


**Disclaimer: **Here's a random fact: Jamie Oliver is cute as a button. Here's another random fact: I don't own Prince of Tennis, or any of the characters. :)

**Rating: **PG, probably. I guess. Maybe. What constitutes a 'G', anyway?!

**Warnings: **Shounen-ai/yaoi, crack, Niou.

**Summary: **Well, you can't say that life with Rikkai Dai is ever boring. Just ask Yagyuu's golf clubs, or Sanada's email inbox.

**Author's notes:** Another Rikkai drabblething. **You don't have to have read the ones that come before this, but it might help a bit. **The full list can be found on my profile.The latest ten drabblethings are:

**The Name's Metaphor. Blatant Metaphor.**

**Cirque du Rikkai**

**Guess Who Fate Doesn't Like Much?**

**Eep, Crayons, and Parrots with Problems**

**The Waiting Camel**

**Operation: Gentleman Hunt**

**A Little Autumn Tale**

**Cases in Point**

**The Theology of Scarves**

"**He'll Live."**

If you haven't read any of them before, then all you really need to know for this fic is that the third-years are now in their first year of highschool, and Kirihara (who, incidentally, I always, always call Akaya) is in the third year of junior high. n.n

I'm sorry for the massive delay to this one, people! I have no excuse save my laziness and temporary hatred of all plots, however slight. My love to **Britix**, **Jackalackala, Chaotic captivation, Insanity-rules-me** (Killed to death? xDD I may have to nick that line, just so you know), **LovableDuck, mysticLegend11, Darkness for Eternity, ShadowinRW, Simmy.xxx** (LOL), **Hropkey, Wingless-Crying-Angel, Scorch66, Ayumi Uchiha, Ahoptep, Starwberry Go-go, Poakkis **(Where? Where? –Shifty eyes-), **Juz-a-reviewer, Endlessly** (Thanks so much for the offer; I got it from someone else, but thankies! –Muffins-), **Neon Genesis, Youngdaughterofdarkness** (I'll definitely do so at some point n.n), **KiriharaAkaya, My Dad is Mr.Clean, Awin-chan **(EXACTLY), **Pikke Wood, Lauren **(Did I give you an answer...? I don't remember n.n;;), **Roaming Phantom **(I will get round to that sometime… I will!)**, Ryuu Amethyst, Fachel **(xD lol Glad to hear it n.n), **Serenitatis417, Jomai, Olivine, Tuli-Susi, U.P.girl123, Tysunkete, Anonymous **(Thankies! Always great to hear)**, Nyleve** and **Celendier**. I love you guys. –Squish-

Oh, and the summary has virtually nothing to do with the fic. I apologise for this. n.n;;

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The rain didn't so much fall as drift. It was the kind of rain that said, "Mist? Who, me? No, no… this is just my… weekend outfit. Yeah."

In any case, Sanada wasn't particularly looking forward to running in it. But that wouldn't stop him, of course. He had to go for a run. Because it was Routine, and Routine had to persist come hell, high water or UFOs. Or rain-mist.

Sadly, Yukimura had never held any particular respect for Sanada's Routine.

"Yukimura," said Sanada, sounding pained, "I need to go for a run."

"No you don't. I'm sure missing one will do you no harm whatsoever, Genichiroh. Who knows? It may even do you some good."

Sanada gritted his teeth. "But did you _have_ to bring all of _them_ with you?"

Niou and Akaya smirked up at him from the livingroom sofa. Marui waved. Jackal and Yagyuu gave him polite nods, and Yanagi just smiled sedately.

Yukimura opened his mouth to answer, but Sanada cut him off with a sigh and a long-suffering shake of his head. Yukimura never _had_ to do anything. It just happened. The boy was the embodiment of completely, meticulously organised chaos. Chaos so neat and tidy that it put the Chaos Theory to shame, butterfly or no.

"Ne, fukubuchou? Can we have some tea?" asked Marui hopefully.

With another silent sigh, Sanada waved a hand in the direction of the kitchen. "Just go and help yourselves. Please try not to make any mess." He turned and headed resignedly for the stairs. "I'm going to go and change," he added, indicating his running clothes.

He didn't realise that Yukimura had followed him up until he turned to open his bedroom door. He _almost_ yelped in shock; only years of habitual suppression of most natural noises prevented it.

"Oh, sorry," said Yukimura sheepishly. "I didn't mean to frighten you."

"I wasn't frightened. Just a little surprised." Sanada opened the door, then hesitated, hand still on the handle.

"Why don't you wait downstairs while I get changed?" he suggested.

There was a pause in which Yukimura looked blankly at him, clearly waiting for Sanada to either explain or to take back the silly suggestion.

Sanada gave in. He couldn't think of an actual reason – in fact, why had he even bothered to say anything? He was sure that there must be a reason, because his mouth would never dare to do anything without express permission, but he really couldn't think why. That was a side-effect, he'd found, of having Yukimura look solely at you for more than two seconds.

Strange that no-one else seemed to find that, but still. Takes all sorts, and all that.

"Never mind," he said, and opened the door.

…

Oh yeah. See, he _knew_ there was a reason.

Neat little heaps of dog plushies were arranged on the floor, ordered according to size, colour and cuteness. They weren't Sanada's. No, really, they weren't. He was genuinely keeping them temporarily in his room for his neighbours, who had a little girl who was having her room redone and they didn't have anywhere else to put the plushies so Sanada's parents had said that Genichiroh would _love_ to keep them in his room for a few days and so it had come to pass that he'd ended up with them and yes, alright, he'd been the one to order them but it hadn't been out of _fun_ it had just –

Sanada's brain ran out of breath before he could start relaying the explanation to his mouth.

He needn't have worried – Yukimura settled comfortably down on Sanada's futon, behaving as though he wasn't surrounded by dog plushies of all shapes and colours, some rather dubious. 'I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation,' his mild expression said. 'You don't need to bother explaining – you'll only raise your blood pressure.'

Taking out a casual shirt from his wardrobe and a pair of jeans at random, Sanada started to change.

"So what exactly are the plans for today?" he asked, fiddling with the buttons.

"There aren't any as such," said Yukimura. "I thought maybe we'd just go play a little informal doubles tournament, or something. The rest of the team tagged along, actually, because I was really heading over to talk to you about-"

A very loud, very long string of expletives sounded from downstairs. It was followed by the equally loud yelp of an Akaya in Distress.

Standing up quickly, alarmed, Yukimura hurried downstairs followed closely by Sanada.

"What happened?" he said. "'Haru! Let go of Akaya's ear!"

"He threw-!"

"I only-!"

"You DIDN'T-!"

"Just _golf_-!"

"Um."

Holding up his hand sharply, Yukimura cut through the flood of protests and explanations.

Slowly, Sanada took in the scene before him as Yukimura disentangled Akaya from an irate Niou and a fiercely protective Marui.

There was coffee all over the floor. Well, actually, there might be a few square centimetres here and there that had escaped, but it was pretty well-spread carpet carnage overall. Niou himself was drenched in the stuff, as was Jackal's arm. Somehow, Yagyuu's glasses had ended up on Yanagi's shoulder (Sanada avoided Yagyuu's eyes out of politeness – the poor boy must have felt terribly naked).

Torn between yelling the lot of them into submission (minus Yukimura, of course) and simply kicking them out, Sanada went for the third option and went to take a very slight overdose of aspirin. It helped.

Well, at least his cap had miraculously escaped the damage.

-------------------------------

The rain-mist had retreated by the time everything had been cleaned up, and so they all went down (including Sanada, to his resigned annoyance) to Rikkai Daigaku's practice courts. Marui had pressed for a doubles tournament, but he was outvoted, mostly by Akaya who insisted that his vote should be counted twice.

It was never a good idea to hold an informal singles tournament with this team, Sanada reflected morosely as a miniature battle began to break out and tennis balls started whizzing past his head. It was just as well that Hyoutei wasn't there, otherwise who knew what chaos Niou would invoke.

Still, the whole session was rapidly descending into madness. It had started when Jackal accidentally mis-hit the ball and sent it into the back of Akaya's head. Predictably, Marui had leapt to his boyfriend's vengeance. Unpredictably, Niou had taken Marui's side for once, and in the spirit of fairness Yagyuu had immediately taken Jackal's.

Marui and Niou were experts in the art of battles such as these, and on the rare occasions they worked together they were a near flawless team, and so it had taken them all of thirty seconds to construct a little fort out of everyone's tennis bags and a bench, behind which they were stockpiling the tennis balls Yagyuu and Jackal threw their way.

"I suppose I should pick Jackal and Yagyuu's side," said Yanagi; he was sitting next to Sanada. "What do you think?"

"I think you should," nodded Yukimura. "You'd better be quick," he added, pointing, "because it looks like 'Haru and Maru are going to charge."

"Get reinforcements!" Marui yelled, to the Trickster's irritation.

"What the hell do you want me to get, ants?!" he demanded. "Stop yelling in my ear!"

"Look, Yanagi's joining Jackal, so we need reinforcements to charge! You always have to outnumber the people you're charging."

"I count twice, remember?" protested Akaya loudly. Niou mumbled something that Sanada couldn't quite catch – it was obviously some kind of insult, because Akaya, excited by battle, jumped him with a yell and they wrestled furiously on the ground, ignoring Marui's attempts to separate them (attempts which would probably have been more effective if he wasn't laughing his ass off at the time).

Yukimura moved along the bench to take Yanagi's place. "While they get on with that," he said, "I need to talk-"

"OI! Silver-pair-san!" Marui hollered, waving towards the bushes outside the fencing. Yukimura blinked and glanced over. Sanada followed suit; sure enough, Shishido and Ohtori could just about be made out through the leaves. "Hey! Come help us out!"

Sanada shut his eyes. "What exactly are the chances of them taking this exact route, at this exact time of day?" he said out loud to no-one in particular.

"It's pretty out of their way," said Yukimura. "I guess they came to see 'Haru."

"… Why would anyone _voluntarily_ spend time around him?"

Yukimura gave him a reprimanding look. "Be nice, Genichiroh. 'Haru is always worth spending time with."

"Far be it from me to say anything disrespectful," said Sanada, "but he's an unkind, unhelpful, rude, likes to annoy people, likes to flare people's tempers, enjoys inflicting pain, loves to fight, completely unaltruistic, unmotivated Trickster."

"Who is perfectly worth spending time with." Clearly, Yukimura's total, inexplicable blindness to Akaya's faults was temporarily extending to Niou as well.

"What on earth's going on here?" Shishido asked, looking around the courts in amazement as he and Ohtori rounded the gates. "I didn't think so many tennis balls _existed_."

"I told you… the dimensional… fields are… weaker in Rikkai," said Niou in between grunts of effort. "We're fighting a war, so get this damn bratling off me and help!"

Obviously suppressing a smile, Choutarou bowed politely to Yukimura and Sanada before dodging tennis balls on the way to join Niou, Marui and Akaya. Sanada frowned questioningly as Shishido stayed where he was, then gave a nod of approval.

"At least someone's sensible enough to stay out of it," he sighed.

"Actually," said Shishido, "I'm thinking it might be better to join the other team."

Yukimura smiled a little. "It's traditional for you to fight against 'Haru, after all, hmm?"

"Yeah." Taking his hands out of his pockets, Shishido ran over, smirking at Niou's call of, "Traitor!"

Dimly, Sanada remembered that Yukimura had been trying to tell him something, but it was quickly forgotten again when Yukimura got up, rubbed his hands together thoughtfully and followed Shishido.

"I _knew_ I should have just kicked them out," Sanada told the ground by his feet. Sighing inwardly, he got out his MP3 from his pocket and let his collection of old jazz soothe his poor, battered mind.

-------------------------------

"So who won?" Sanada asked.

Niou grinned at him and pointed to an ugly bruise on Shishido's jaw. "You can't guess, fukubuchou?"

Shishido glowered and started to retort, but he was cut off by Marui. "Actually, our side lost," he said regretfully. "Figures – we were doomed as soon as Mura picked the other side, huh?"

"… Niou punched you in the jaw?" Sanada asked Shishido with a frown. At last, the chance to issue some well-deserved laps…

"No," Shishido growled. "That was Kirihara, actually."

Behind him, Niou and Akaya high-fived. "I knew there was a reason I let you live," said Niou, with what passed with him for pride.

"It was probably an accident," said Yukimura to Sanada, just as Sanada opened his mouth to happily order laps. "It can pass this time."

Sanada looked pained again. "But… It shows an aggressive front to Rikkai Daigaku," he protested. "It's very bad for, for… for interschool relationships. And besides," he added indignantly, "It was definitely _not_ an accident."

"Why not? You weren't watching," said Yukimura.

"… Were you?"

"Of course I was. It was clearly an accident, right Akaya?"

"Mm hm, yep," nodded Akaya, beaming. The Transparent Beam of Evil, as Sanada liked to think of that expression.

"There you go, then. You know Aka-chan would never punch anyone other than 'Haru or possibly Bunta on purpose, Genichiroh."

Sanada didn't even bother opening his mouth.

"It's just gone noon," said Yanagi, checking his watch. "Shall we go grab some lunch? It's too cold to eat outside, unless you don't mind losing a finger or two to frostbite."

"What about losing other people's fingers to frostbite?" Niou drawled. He was generally ignored, but Shishido did roll his eyes slightly. That was good enough for Niou, and he lapsed into satisfied silence.

"Let's go to the Wonderland café," Yukimura suggested. "They do food now, I think. Or we can just get something from a vendor and go eat in the shopping centre."

"Yeah, let's do that," Marui nodded eagerly. "I need some sugar."

"You always need sugar, sugar-freak," said Niou. With practised ease, Marui flipped him off with one hand and waved apologetically to Sanada for swearing with the other.

They headed for the nearest street vendor with minimal bickering; Ohtori and Shishido seemed happy to chat to Yukimura about Hyoutei life, leaving Sanada free to keep one eye on Akaya and one ear on whatever Yanagi was telling him (something to do with the latest mechanical and technological breakthrough – Sanada felt bad about not listening properly, but really, he was sure Yanagi knew he wasn't taking it in and didn't mind anyway). It didn't take long to find several vendors to suit everyone's tastes and buy lunch, and it didn't take very long for them to find a couple of benches in the nearest shopping centre to eat it in.

Unfortunately, it didn't take very long for the infamous Rikkai Argumentativeness to hunt them down either.

"No _way_! Our team _totally_ kicked your team's _ass_," Akaya said heatedly. "What are you, hydrolysed?"

"No, we – _hydrolysed_?"

"He learnt it in Biology," Marui said with his mouth full of some sort of horrendously sweet substance Sanada chose to believe was toffee.

"Oh." Shishido seemed to need a moment to recover, and being the reliable doubles partner he was, Ohtori took over.

"To be fair, you did have a tough time at Singles 1," he said reasonably. "Hiyoshi-kun almost won a few times during the tie-break. If it hadn't been for that unlucky stumble, well…"

Akaya snorted. "Clumsy idiocy, you mean," he sniffed.

"He's not clumsy!" Shishido defended instantly. "Whatever he may be, he certainly isn't clumsy. You just don't like the fact that he grew so much stronger in a year, whereas you only grew a bit, Kirihara."

"But I started off as a total genius _anyway_, so there!"

"A hard worker can beat a genius," Shishido said firmly.

"Can not!"

"Can so!"

"Can not!"

"Can-" With a visible effort, Shishido pulled himself away from descending into the forthcoming childishness. "I fought my way back onto the Hyoutei Regulars last year through sheer hard work, so _there_." He turned pointedly away from Akaya.

Yanagi glanced up from his ramen, and Sanada could tell that he was impressed. He was too, a little – evidently, Niou's constant maulings of Shishido's temper seemed to have given the shorter boy better control over it.

"Ne, Genichiroh," Yukimura said, dropping his plastic cup neatly into the recycling bin next to their benches.

"Hmm?"

"I promised to pick up some pocky for Mie on the way home; come help me find some." Yukimura stood up and dusted himself off.

Sanada blinked, but followed obediently with a small nod to Yanagi to run things for a while.

They walked quietly through the bustling crowds of people – the shopping centre was always busy on a Sunday – and looked for a shop that would sell pocky. Despite what he'd said earlier, Yukimura seemed to know where he was going, so Sanada let him lead the way.

It took barely three minutes to get there, and Sanada waited patiently for Yukimura to purchase a box. He started out of the shop when Yukimura rejoined him, and headed back in the direction they'd come from.

He frowned as he suddenly realised Yukimura was, in fact, going the opposite way.

"Ah, Yukimura? It's this way," he said, gesturing.

Yukimura smiled a little. "We can take a little detour. Come on." He started walking, obviously expecting Sanada to catch up to him.

Puzzled but ever faithful, Sanada did.

He was led to a coin fountain; the water in it cascaded down like a waterfall, following the steps, and from there it seemed to go into a hidden set of pipes that must pump it back up to the fountain again. Sanada could see coins of all shapes and sizes (and even some buttons, oddly enough, but at least they were only buttons and not, say, owls) glimmering on the fountain floor. All in all, it was really rather pretty.

Yukimura leant on the metal bar overlooking the fountain, and studied Sanada thoughtfully for a few moments. Sanada met his gaze evenly, simply waiting – he might get an explanation, but he might not. Either was fine by him, because unlike Yanagi, Yukimura sometimes did things for purely no reason at all.

However, after a few seconds had passed Yukimura broke his gaze in favour of the fountain and started to speak.

"Sorry about the detour," he said casually. "I've been trying to tell you something all morning, and I thought I wouldn't get a better chance."

"Oh, of course…" Sanada's memory tapped him politely but firmly on the shoulder. "I should have asked. Sorry."

"That's alright. It's about this Christmas. I'm-"

_Beep-beep-beep BEEP-beep beep…_

"going-"

… _BEEEEEEEEEEP beep-beep-beep._

An extremely rare look of irritation clouded Yukimura's face for a moment, but Sanada missed it as he hunted for his phone.

"Hel-" he started, but slender fingers flipped Sanada's phone neatly out of his hand and placed it pointedly into a pocket.

Sanada raised his eyebrows. "… Yukimura?"

"Honestly, talk about Murphy's Law," Yukimura muttered under his breath. He sent the fountain an uncharacteristically dirty look and said out loud, "I dare you to interrupt me again, Fate."

A little worried for Yukimura's sanity now, Sanada opened his mouth to ask, but he shut it quickly again as Yukimura turned his full attention to him very, very firmly. Dimly, he remembered Yagyuu telling him that his golf clubs were afraid of Yukimura's attention… or was it efficiency…? Either way, he realised now that he didn't find it such an insanely ridiculous notion after all.

Very clearly and very determinedly, Yukimura said, "Genichiroh, I've been offered a chance to train for the professional tennis circuit, and I'm taking it. I'm leaving to go to America temporarily after Christmas. The Nationals are over, and there are only some informal show tournaments left in the school year, so I'm not especially needed. Ishihara-senpai will be acting-captain, so I'm appointing you acting-vice-captain. I'm going to explain sometime next week to the rest of tennis club, but I wanted to let you know first."

There was a second's pause.

"Um," said Sanada.

Determination wavering a little, Yukimura added, "I thought about it for a long time, and I do think-"

"Um," said Sanada again. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but… you already told me this."

This time, the pause was considerably longer.

"I really, really, _really_ don't think I did," Yukimura said finally.

Almost apologetically, Sanada fished his phone back out of his pocket and opened up his internet access.

"Here," he said, showing Yukimura the screen. "You emailed it to me yesterday."

"…" Yukimura took the phone and scrolled down the email on the screen. He probably wasn't reading it, Sanada guessed – Yukimura didn't read nearly that slowly. He was probably using the time to think. And sure enough…

"Oh." Yukimura's expression was very carefully neutral. "I knew I should have done my draft in a document instead of an email. And I always knew I didn't like having the 'Save Draft' button next to the 'Send' button."

"It is annoying," Sanada agreed.

"I knew I didn't really need to plan it, either. Improvisation would have been perfectly fine."

"I've never known you to plan these things before," Sanada concurred.

"And I really knew that computers don't like me too much at the best of times."

"You have always been a fan of paper," Sanada nodded.

Yukimura let out a serrated sigh. "So, you knew? What was your immediate reaction to the email, then?" he asked.

"In Akaya's terms; yay! Wait, what?" said Sanada dryly.

He was rewarded with a small smile. "You could have replied to the email and saved me the trouble of today, you know."

"The email ended a little abruptly, so I thought you were probably going to send a follow-up email or something," Sanada answered apologetically. "It was already late at night though, so I couldn't wait up for it. I tried, but I was virtually falling asleep at my desk, so I thought I'd read it after my run tomorrow. Today, I mean."

"What is today but yesterday's tomorrow?" sighed Yukimura with a nod. "Fair enough." He sent Sanada an appraising look. "You're not upset or anything of the sort, are you?"

"Of course not. It's a wonderful opportunity. I'm genuinely happy for you, Yukimura." The barest hint of a smile played on Sanada's lips.

Yukimura relaxed and returned it with a full-blown smile of his own. "Mura does just fine, you know," he said. "You called me that, what, once? Stick to it. We've known each other for three and a half years or so, Genichiroh."

Sanada looked a little doubtful. "It sounds…" he searched for the right word, and came up blank.

"What? Impersonal? As though you're infringing my personal-space bubble?" said Yukimura, amused. "You're happy to call Renji 'Renji'."

"No, not exactly…" Sanada gave up; he couldn't think of a real reason anyway. It was simply that Yukimura was just… Yukimura. "Alright," he conceded. "Maybe in private."

Something in Yukimura's expression hinted that he knew Sanada would 'forget', but he let it pass. And with good timing; Sanada's phone went off in his hand. He only avoided dropping it because his tennis-ingrained instinct was, when surprised, to grip one's racquet all the tighter.

Sanada hastily rescued his phone from being strangled and pressed 'Answer'. "Hello?"

"Genichiroh? Why did you hang up before? I calculated a seventy-six percent chance that you were suddenly busy for some reason, so I didn't call back right away, but I really had to now. I'm afraid I've misplaced several members of the team."

"… You mean, you've lost them."

"Mm," said Yanagi vaguely. "Niou, Marui and Shishido-kun started up a three-way argument that escalated into a three-way fight, which was interrupted when Niou realised Akaya had stolen his lunch while he was arguing, so Akaya fled quite possibly for his life with Niou in pursuit, and Shishido and Marui followed because they apparently hate leaving a fight unfinished. And then Yagyuu and Ohtori-kun headed off in a different direction to try and catch them and stop Akaya or Shishido from being murdered by Niou, and stop Marui making the situation worse. Jackal ran off to find a bookshop so he could buy one and then claim non-responsibility for Akaya's actions, since he couldn't possibly be on baby-sitting duty _and_ read 'The Once and Future King' at the same time."

"Well, at least that leaves…" Sanada's automatic head-counter prodded him. "… you. Renji, you've lost everyone, haven't you?"

"Mm."

"We'll be right there." Sanada hung up and gave Yukimura a long-suffering look. "…" he began.

"And this is why I'm appointing you temporary fukubuchou instead of poor Renji," Yukimura said, cutting him off before he could make a sound. "You might have been able to keep a hold of, say, Marui and Yagyuu and Ohtori, and possibly even Jackal on a good day. I'll bet you're automatically thinking how you would have dealt with the situation yourself in a more effective way, hmm?" Sanada didn't say anything, and Yukimura nodded in satisfaction.

"You'll do fine," he said encouragingly, starting back off towards the entrance. "Let's go rescue our team."

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Ne: Used either for asking for confirmation, or as a kind of 'Hey'.

Kun: As in 'Ohtori-kun'. An honorific usually given to boys your own age or younger.

Fukubuchou: Vice-captain, and also therein the team's (with the exception of Yanagi, Yagyuu and Yukimura… Hmm, all the 'Y's…) nickname for Sanada. Because he was fukubuchou last year. Obviously.

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Sandy: … It turned out to be not such a little tale after all. n.n;; And the email thing did happen to me recently – hence the title, because this, friends, is a morality tale. Oh yes. Morality Rikkai-style. Be warned, if you're the type who ever plans important things before saying them. ;)

I'm also not _entirely_ sure about the correctnessnessnessness of my use of 'infringing'. Sorry if I'm wrong and confused anyone n.n;; It's late, and I'm tired, and I can't be bothered to look it up.

Please drop me a reviewy-view? I'd really, really, really appreciate it. I really, really would! Especially seeing as I'm doing this instead of a fairly important essay, which will now be late, to the wrath of my professor… -Shifty eyes- LOL. Oh, and if you quote your favourite bit from this or any other Drabblething, then that would massively help me improve my writing. n.n

Until next time!


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